Embarrassing? Yes. Funny? No.

Last January I recounted an incident that happened to me. I more or less know all the people that I know that read this blog. In other words, as far as I know, none of my close (or not so close) real world friends know this exists aside from those I've shared it with. Apparently I shared it with a Norwegian cousin of mine and then forgot about it. This typically wouldn't be a big deal, but she found the above linked story to be so funny she felt the need to share it with a few friends and other relatives. Initially she didn't think it was a big deal, we're an ocean apart. Lets skip ahead to Christmas this year. 

My cousin made a cookbook for her mother, her grandmother and some other people. Seeing as it was made for Norwegians, by a Norwegian, the whole cookbook was written in Norwegian. Except for one page. She had accidentally mixed a copy of my blog post in with the recipes. A family recipe book with many classic family recipes from both the US and Norway, and one story of extremely unfortunate bathroom humor. This wouldn't have been so bad if her mother wasn't currently living in the US, and she wasn't spending Christmas here. At a small party the Saturday after Christmas this recipes book was passed around for a good deal of my family to see. Seeing as most of us don't speak (or read Norwegian) we just flipped through the book until we came to the lone page written in English, which was my story. Normally I don't embarrass easily, but there was this one woman (my grandmother's cousin) that wouldn't shut up and keep trying to read the story aloud, after she found out I had written it. I've got to admit I was more embarrassed by the typos and spelling mistakes than the actual story. I supposed I should do a better job of proofreading my blog entries in the future. Regarding the recipe book: It doesn't matter now, all the copies, save for one, have now returned to Norway. 

Man Skillls.

I was going to tell you about the guy I saw pass-out and smack his head into the ground yesterday, but then I read these two blog entries and decided to treat you to some hallway horror stories Friday instead.

I've recently come to the conclusion that I've lived a much too coddled life. I can't do so many of the typical "man" things. I can't fix cars. I've never even changed a flat tire (never had to, AAA). I don't know anything about electrical wiring. I remember being in elementary school with kid that would build their own radios from junk lying around the house. I can't do much as far as wood working goes. I have built a couple of bird houses, a cutting board, and some other junk, but nothing working writing home about. I have told my girlfriend recently that I want to build a bat box, you know for bats. I hate bugs, and I want as many bug eating bats in my back yard as possible. The thing I'm most ashamed of. I cannot drive a car with a manual transmission. I've never had to. My dad drove a VW GTI with a stick until I was about 12, but since then only my brother had owned a car with a stick shift. I could, and will, ask him to show me, but I haven't had the time.

All that is bad enough, but I don't dwell on it. I'm sure that I could go my whole life without needing many of those skills, but I'd rather not. I want to build things. That's where these blog entries come in.

The first one is about a guy that took a stuffed cat, and wired into this old Police Interceptor so that the lights he put in the cats eyes would single when he turns. Check it out here.

The second one is the same guy building a 92lbs boombox from old car parts he found at a junkyard. They've included a video to whet your appetite before you read the how-to on the blog entry.